Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen a commercial running regularly around dinnertime and it “demonstrates” how the Rapture will be experienced. A brief description:

This is a snapshot from my great-grandfather’s sermon notes.  “To love G-d . . . Is to love one another.”  That’s a good line. I have nothing to add.

This is a snapshot from my great-grandfather’s sermon notes.

Fundamentals of Our Faith

The following speech was delivered at the Seuda (meal) marking the end of the shiva for Yael Wittenberg (nee Nicole). A shiva is a period of mourning where the family stays in their home and talks about those who have passed. I never met Yael, but had the honor of speaking at this occasion…

At every shiva I attend, I ask the same question: What one attribute, or characteristic, or action should I carry forward from the person who has passed on? What was the singular gift that you, the mourners, hope to see echo through the reality that remains? Having heard about Yael’s bullheadedness, I expected the answer would be just that. She was stubborn and, eventually, she got her way. But that is not what was shared. Instead, I heard about something else entirely. I heard about her love of G-d – even in the face of her devastating experience of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s). I heard about her dedication to the spiritual and the mystical. I heard about her Emunah (Faith).

I woke up this morning to this email link from LifeSiteNews.

Pope Francis has removed our good and faithful bishop, Joseph Strickland. This is devastating news to me and to all of us in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas. Bishop Strickland is one of the few bishops in the USA who actually practice what they preach. I’m so angry right now I don’t know what to say.

Those who claim Islam is an inherently terroristic religion are branding one of the world’s most popular religions as essentially anathema to freedom and any other modern value system. The result is the need for a permanent war. Islam cannot be removed from the world, and the Taliban demonstrated that it can persist in the face of overwhelming Western force. Furthermore, as it is a collection of apparently very persuasive ideas, Islam cannot be checked at a border and prevented from crossing. The answer to such a threat seems to be the suspension of our own values in the pursuit of restricting Islamic ones. But even that seems ineffective — France does not exactly play with kid gloves, but they are unable to enter vast neighborhoods dominated by Islamic forces.

On the other hand, those who claim it is essentially a religion of peace face an uphill climb in terms of evidence. Right now, anti-Jewish Islamic mobs the world over are demonstrating that terroristic Islam is seemingly spreading. England has been cowed into a position of open acceptance of Islamic violence. Policy decisions behind the ‘religion of peace’ model seem to have led us to where we are — with vast Islamic populations posing an increasing threat to a well-meaning Western world.

This is a snapshot from my great-grandfather’s sermon notes. Or, in this case, other notes–looks like a newspaper clipping, actually.

Do you know–

This week has again opened with the losses of our soldiers. One of my sons didn’t have two classes today. He didn’t have math because his math teacher’s son had been seriously injured over the weekend. He didn’t have his class on the creative arts because that teacher’s son had been killed. As you may know, Jews have an event called a shiva after a death. People are welcomed into the homes of those who are mourning. For up to a week after a death, we talk about those who have passed. It is almost like the final skip of a rock across a lake.  A life’s last waves ripple across the surface just as it is sinking.

Today, shiva events are large events. There are marquee tents set up outside houses and the families sit and talk for days and days. People bring them food. Whole communities come to honor those who have been lost defending our people.